Haimacouria
by Kale12
Summary: This is her birthright. Diana at the end of New 52, the closure we never got. SMWW, but BMWW if you squint.


I adore Wonder Woman, I'm cautiously excited about Rebirth, but man do we all need closure. Regardless of my shipping preferences (Diana/Bruce is my OTP), I appreciated the Superman-Wonder Woman pairing, and Diana comes off pretty fierce during the Soule run of their eponymous book. Azarello's Wonder Woman is an epic hero against a constellation of god and monsters and mortals, and like all the best Greek heroes, she pays the price in tragedy and heartbreak. And her grief deserves closure.

Also, sometimes a girl just needs to wallow.

Don't own.

* * *

Once upon a time…

No.

Hear me, O muses...

Perhaps.

I loved a man, once. We found each other in loneliness and now he is dead and I am alone, alone, alone. I lost a mother and a father and a lover who broke my heart, and sometimes I think my edges are blurring. Sometimes the voices whisper _bleed Amazon, this is your birthright_ , and sometimes I agree. Forged in grief, honed by strife, we prefer our heroes tragic.

* * *

My calm makes the League uneasy. They offer me time to grieve, and I have to stop the laughter that bubbles up when I think of a god on bereavement. They would forgive the laughter, I think - some small sign of hysteria more in line with their expectations.

"Ice princess," I hear someone murmur.

 _Ice queen_ , I think.

I remind myself that these men are also mourning one of their own, a comrade, a Superman. They are trying to be kind.

* * *

It's still Clark I think about, late at night, desperate to flood my brain and find some release. I think about his mouth as my own fingers make their way between my legs. Always so warm, everywhere at once until my skin tingled. Broad hands on my back, smoother than one would expect from a farmer's son, as he held me in place. I couldn't breathe - he didn't need to - and he showed me, over and over. Smiling as he teased, telling me he liked the taste of me better than apple pie, biting gently when I laughed at him. There was such joy in our bed.

* * *

"Lois and Lana got his powers," Batman says, and I don't know why my insides clench, why my throat closes up. I am thankful for the dim light of the cave, for Bruce's deliberate concentration on the screen in front of him.

"Is it permanent?" I ask. Would a normal woman have asked about their well-being first?

"It seems that way."

"They will need training. We need to be sure they can control it. Are they going to be superheroes now? This is dangerous." I can feel my voice pitching higher, and all the while I'm moving chess pieces in my head, running battle plans for the women who might take Clark's place, charting all the brand new paths to the end-of-days.

"Diana -"

"I assume you want to me train them?"

"No," he says, and I find myself growing angry.

"I've had enough of people being careful with me, Batman."

He turns in his chair to look at me, cowl pushed back so I can see his wry expression. He has a beautiful face, haunted and haunting. Something rises in my blood when I look at him. Not attraction, exactly, desire is too deadened in me. Interest, then. Recognition. I am War, he is one of mine.

"I loved him, too, Diana," he says, and he reaches out a hand. "Kara has agreed to oversee their training. It'll be good for her. She needs something to do, and she's more than capable. We'll call in the God of War once they've mastered the basics."

Bruce's hand is callused and rough, sweaty. He doesn't let go.

* * *

I did not sleep for many days after I became War. There were drums in my blood, a marching tattoo that brought wave after fresh wave of adrenaline. War cries pounding through my skull. Spikes of bloodlust that made me ache with desire, and a lover who would not be able to slake my thirst.

I lost Clark before he died. Kal lost his powers and I lost Clark and his sweet, slow smile. I lost his easy forgiveness of my impatience, my temper.

 _I don't know if I love you anymore._

I wish it had been a cleaner break. Some sort of battle of irreconcilable ideals, principles to cling to in the face of love. But instead it was siege, warping and wearying. Small resentments and hurts too sharp to voice.

 _I don't know if I love you anymore._

My lasso burned constantly. New truths, new lies. I never felt like clay until I plunged a blade through my heart's father, my wise teacher. Spread thin, trying to mold myself into what they needed. Olympus needed a God of War. My Amazons needed a Queen. I had promised life to my youngest brother, and death to my oldest. Mortals required a savior, superheroes asked for a teammate. And Clark… Clark wanted to help.

 _I don't know if I love you anymore._

How do you tell a man, a man who once knew the powers of a god, that you want to protect him? How do you tell a man that you're barely making sense of the knotted tapestry of your own life, one you suspect is unraveling from all corners, held together by spider's silk, that you don't know how to weave him into it?

 _I don't know if I love you anymore._

He became rougher after he lost his powers. We'd had earth-shattering sex before, flush with victory and abandon, the dizzying freedom of a partner with whom you didn't have to hold back. This was glory like I had never known, like taking off my bracers, like lightning. Making love in the air was the first time I felt like a god.

I was careful when we made love, the first time after his powers left him. I had no choice, and the frustration grew more evident on his face each time I bruised him unthinkingly, each time I pulled back in fear. He finished, I didn't, and he left our bed to walk through the city alone. I lay awake, listening to his heartbeat fade and then return as he came back to me, taking me in his arms as I ran my fingers through his thick, black hair.

Some nights weren't so bad. He still knew my body, still loved me, could still bring me to breaking point with slow, exquisite tenderness. Other nights I was an outlet. I took his anger and his frustration, let him vent it on my body that he could no longer bruise. He couldn't leave love bites.

I could do no right. I could not be honest about my own frustration without wounding him, without making him feel as though he were no longer satisfying me. And anything else he took as pity, and hated us both a little for it.

He asked why I didn't come to him when I assumed the mantle of War. For seven days the bloodlust seized me, flooded me. At full strength he could have eased the desire, at my full strength, unchecked, I would only cause us both pain. I was a god, a coward, a woman. There was no room for Clark amidst the ever-chanting voices of the warriors in my head.

 _I don't know if I love you anymore._

It still hurts when I hear him say it, in my head. Gods know I've heard it over and over, since. With every regret, every poor decision, even the ones that have nothing to do with him. I should have saved him, should have let him save me. I would give my very soul to have him back on this earth, in all his bitterness and anger, even only to hear him say it again.

* * *

Clark's coffin contains a handful of earth. It is lowered into the ground and I find myself thankful there wasn't a body to bury, to rot in the dirt. The ceremony is simple and sweet. Bruce stands beside me and does not take my hand, but his shoulder is a steady pressure against mine.

The mourners leave one by one, to the Langs' where they will eat and comfort one another in the familiar way. I walk slowly to the Kents' house, leaving Bruce to linger at Clark's parents' graves. Not for the first time do I wish I had known them, wish I could have loved them, wish they could have loved me. We could have used the extra love, Clark and I.

I almost can't cross the threshold into Clark's room. Sunlight dances in from an open window, touching the familiar surfaces, warm and worn and so dear with his presence. There is an envelope on his pillow. Diana, it says, in his messy scrawl, and my heart pounds in my ears. My hands shake too much to open it, and then too much to read it. I scan it too eagerly at first, desperate for some wild sign…

 _I love you, Diana._

 _I'm starting with that, even before I say I'm sorry, because I know I've made you doubt it. There's still so much left unsaid between us, so much wasted time._

 _I wanted to ask you to marry me. Before our world went a little crazy, and we just seemed to keep hurting each other. Somehow the timing was just never right - that seems so absurd now. You deserve more than the desperate proposal of a dying man, but you have been my wife in every true way, the companion of my heart._

 _I wish I had a thousand more years - it would never be enough - to fight with you, to apologize, to break down the walls we put up, to hold you and love you with every ounce of strength in my body. Because I do. I love you and I hope you can hear me say it every second of every day. I'll be with you, watching you be magnificent as you face down the world, as you save it again and again. And when you are in pain, when you are unsure, know that my faith in you transcends time and life. I have never doubted your love, your heart, your spirit. I never will._

 _I will find you again, Diana, be it heaven or elysium, but there's still much joy and love for you here. Embrace it, there's honor in it._

 _I love you, I am yours._

 _Clark_

I do not notice Bruce come in, I am weeping and incoherent. He takes the letter from me gently, folds it back into the envelope, and I startle a little when the ring falls out, hitting the wood floor with a muffled clang. I don't move. Bruce picks it up, and places it in my hand.

"It was his mother's," he says, and I fold into him, letting him share my pain the way I should have let Clark. I look up at him, and his eyes are liquid and dark, and we will always be bound by this. I wonder when I will be able to look at Bruce again without the fresh bite of grief.

"Come to manor with me," he says, still so gentle. "Alfred will feed us and if you feel like breaking things you can come on patrol."

"What if I'm the one breaking?" I sound so hoarse.

"Then I've got a 14th century chess set that's woefully underused. I've always wanted to match wits with War herself." His tone is light, but his voice breaks, and I think he needs this, some distraction, some warmth, as much as I do.

"Alright," I say, rising to my feet, clutching Clark's last gifts to me like a lifeline, taking a last look around his boyhood room.

The sky is golden when we walk out, rays melting on the fields around us.

"Give me a moment," I say, and Bruce nods, squeezing my arm and stepping back as if he knows what I'm going to do.

I launch myself into the air, going higher and higher until Bruce is a dark speck on the lawn, until Clark's home spreads before me in rich color. I look at it as though with his eyes, this place that was so much a part of him, that made him who he was. That he loved and that he shared with me because he loved me, too. I pull out the ring, the sun hits it like a blessing, sending little sparkles all over my fingers. I kiss it, and for a second I feel his lips against mine, feel the tingle of his arms around me.

"I love you, Clark," I tell him, here near the sun where he is still mine. There is a whisper in the wind, warmth and light in my heart where I carry him with me.


End file.
